


2500 tons

by distractionpie



Category: Jurassic Park III (2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Gen, POV Alan Grant, POV Third Person Limited, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The monsters change, the people never do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2500 tons

When the Kaiju first appeared, devastating the coast of California, the world called on every available resource to try and understand what it was now facing. Apparently, in the eyes of the United States government, palaeontology was as an appropriate area of expertise as any to base Kaiju research off. Of course, Alan had attempted to tell them from the start that the resemblances between Kaiju and dinosaurs were superficial at best, but he'd been rebuffed by the argument that he at least had experience in extrapolating attributes and behaviours from little evidence, and anyway, in the wake of K-day interest in and funding for palaeontology had dropped to near nothing, with people too scared for their futures to worry about the fascinating creatures of the past. Alan had never been a fan of the beach, and his experiences on Las Cinco Muertes had only reinforced that distaste. Montana was far enough inland that the Kaiju were no real threat to him, but when the devastation in California was repeated in Manila he couldn't ignore the fact that his own skills could be employed and were needed in the emerging field of exobiology. These monsters will not be contained to an island. Alan goes from the last of a dying breed to something new entirely.

Billy comes with him, and Alan is only a little surprised. For all that they are widely considered monsters, Kaiju are fascinating beings - fortunately right now nobody is suggesting turning them into a tourist attraction. He is given a lab and placed in charge of two dozen other recruits to what they are calling K-science, scientists from a whole range of disparate disciplines that Alan decides to encourage to pursue whatever lines of research most suit them, god knows nobody knows anything about what they’re dealing with, there’s no reason he’s more equipped to lead than any of the others.

(Billy makes a quip about seniority, some of these new people look startled when Alan laughs.)

Two years later all work stops in the lab that he has been given, all eyes are fixed on the television screens as 2500 tons of machinery strikes down a Kaiju of the coast of Vancouver. The world watches in awe as the machine is announced as a prototype Jaeger, the PPDC's new front line of attack. Two months later when the announcement that pilots are being recruited so that more of the machines can be deployed in defence of humanity Alan is not surprised when swathes of his staff talk with their loved ones about submitting their candidacy, although the majority are disappointed. The criteria to pilot a jaeger is strict and while all of Alan's staff are competent, most of them other than Billy are competent only in ways best applied in a lab. Most of them he wouldn't have even wanted on a dig site, let alone piloting billions of dollars machinery in 'defense of the earth' as the recruitment campaigns were calling it.

When Stirling Vengance takes down a Kaiju almost physically intact off the coast of Washington, Alan and Billy go to look. Intact Kaiju corpses are rare, they are usually damaged in the fighting and even if they aren't scavengers, both human and animal, often get there faster than scientists. Alan doesn't much like working with the corpses, his interest lies in bones not decaying flesh, but he is a government employee now and must accept that it has its downsides.

While they are there a PPDC Marshall talks to them about piloting a jaeger, they have just launched what they are calling the mark twos, now with radiation shielding, and are already working on developing marks threes. He talks about Kaiju as if jaegers have made them easy to defeat, even as he admitted that many of the early pilots have developed cancer and Alan can already see that where once his people where considered the forefront of the defence against Kaiju the jaegers are taking that spot, having far more mass appeal than science ever could.

Erik has always written to them both, once joked that they saved his life and so they ought to know what he’s doing with it. As his eighteenth birthday approaches a letter arrives addressed only to Billy. Erik wants to pilot a jaeger, the letter explains, and he wants Billy as his co-pilot - will Billy to come to Alaska for testing?

"Are you going?" Alan asks when Billy shows him the letter. Their science department is slowly loosing staff and funding as people decide they know enough about Kaiju, that the jaeger pilots have it handled. Humanity might understand more about the Kaiju now than when they first made landfall, but Alan is all too aware that those trying to understand these alien creatures are widely considered to be fighting a losing battle.

Billy shrugs. The letter has multiple creases and a dog-eared corner, Billy has carried it for some time before showing it to Alan. "Should I?"

Alan thinks about the proposed wall, the way he's spent months now embattled with bureaucrats that insist on putting forward plans that ignore all the evidence Alan has shown them backing up the theory that the Kaiju are getting stronger. He thinks about the scenes from San Francisco, Mexico, Tokyo, the way people have crowded as far inland as they can get because deep down they know even with the PPDCs best efforts the coasts still aren't safe. The Kaiju just keep coming, they still have nothing but conjecture about where they come from, alongside half a theory that the events are getting more frequent. He thinks about the jaeger that went down of the coast of Alaska, thinks about Erik who Billy once nearly gave his life to save, back when the enemy was still something Alan had truly believed he could understand. He looks at Billy, who never hesitated to get his hands dirty at a dig, was always ready to touch, the heart of astronaut not an astronomer.

"I think you know the answer to that Billy."


End file.
